Biography: Debra J. Liebowitz is Associate Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies and Political Science at Drew University in New Jersey, USA and is also Director of the Drew Semester on the United Nations. Dr. Liebowitz has worked for the past nine years doing gender and human rights related-training and research at the United Nations, both in New York and Geneva. She has worked closely with IWRAW Asia Pacific, a Malaysia-based international women’s human rights organization and is a member of their International Program Management Team. In 2007 she was the recipient of a Rockefeller Foundation, Bellagio Study and Conference Center Grant and is working on a book that stems from this grant on The Uses of CEDAW to Redress Violations of Women’s Human Rights. She is the author of a report (Respect, Protect, Fulfill: Raising the Bar on Women’s Rights in San Francisco) evaluating the city of San Francisco’s efforts to implement their local women’s human rights ordinance. She has published articles in journals like the Feminist International Journal of Politics and Women’s Studies Quarterly and in books like Global Governance: Feminist Perspectives, (2008) edited by Shirin M. Rai and Georgina Waylen. Dr. Liebowitz was the President of the Women & Politics Research Section of the American Political Science Association in 2008-9. She is currently on the board of the New York City Urban Justice Center’s Human Rights Project.

Wendy Kolmar

Title: Professor of English;
Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies
Office: Sitterly House 107Phone: 973-408-3632Email:wkolmar@drew.eduEducation: A.B., Bryn Mawr College, 1972; Ph.D., Indiana University, 1992Biography: Wendy Kolmar is Professor of English and of Women’s and Gender Studies. She teaches courses on feminist theory and the history of feminist thought, Victorian literature, women and literature, gothic and supernatural literature, film and literary criticism. She serves regularly as a consultant and reviewer for women’s and gender studies programs around the country and also served for many years on various governing bodies of the National Women’s Studies Association. Her publications include Haunting the House of Fiction: Feminist Perspectives on Ghost Stories by American Women (with Lynette Carpenter ‑‑ 1991); Creating an Inclusive College Curriculum: A Teaching Source Book from the New Jersey Project (edited with Ellen G. Friedman, Charley B. Flint, and Paula Rothenberg — 1996); A Selected Annotated Bibliography of Ghost Stories by British and American Women Writers (with Lynette Carpenter –1998); Feminist Theory: A Reader ( with Fran Batkowski, now in its second edition.) and a special issue of Women’s Studies Quarterly, entitled Looking Across the Lens: Women’s Studies and Film.